MD2 contains animation. 3DS can contain animation but support isn't very good as far as I've seen.

What type of animation do you want to do? Is it simple rotations of parts or is it "key frame" in that you want to iterate through a series of models for each frame? If so, you might find loading up a series of OBJ models and sticking them in a Switch node will do basically what you want.

I'm gonna need to have a basketball player running, shooting, blocking, etc. I can't export to md2 or ASE,3DS, but I can do .obj and .ac3d. Which format would be best for this, and how do I group together all of the .obj models if that's the best choice?

Have a look at the "Switch" node in Xith3D. Load each OBJ as a add the BranchGroup returned into switch. The switch allows you to (surprise) switch between the different children. So then you can just cycle through your switch displaying each frame in turn.

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